Some friends and I piled into the car and drove down to SF for this Summer Solstice, Shoreline, Grateful Dead show.
Before I get into my review, let me just say I went to Jerry's house the day before, on June 20th! A friend knew one of the guys on the Dead's light crew and they had arraigned some gifts from Oregon to drop off at the Garcia homestead! On the way to the modest house in the hills of San Rafael, the guy that was on the Dead's light crew said not to fan boy out on Jerry if he was home when we got there. I had never seen a show yet, I had listened to the albums, and heard some tapes of older shows, and had friend's that were Deadheads...so at this point Jerry was just a lead guitar player to me, I was hoping he'd be home but wasn't -you know, freaking out like I would be nowadays, some 50 shows later!
We went through the gate and up the winding driveway to the top of the bluff where the double car garage showed only one black Mercedes sedan, it became apparent the big guy was in fact not home. We walked up and the door bell was rung, Jerry's daughter Annabelle opened the door and we went in. She led us up a stairway to her room to smoke. On the way up the stairs I noticed all the framed Gold Albums hanging in the stairwell, and at the top of the stairs was 'In the Dark ', yet to even be hung up. We talked with Annabelle and enjoyed the wonderful Oregon Kind bud, after the session we said our goodbyes and headed back to the car, I even got a hug!

The next day we head out to Shoreline, in the lot I saw bumper stickers reading 'Dead at the Dump' and realized the amphitheater was built on a landfill. It was the longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice. The California sun was beating down on the scene, as the show was about to start Phil gets on the mic and comments that things were just now getting below boiling. Some technical difficulties at the start may have inspired the 'Hide Away' jam the boy's happily play. Maybe it was the fact that it was a Nationwide Pay Per View concert or maybe Jerry had been enjoying the gifts we left, but he was bouncing back and forth, talking at the start AND after the encore! It was truly a special day! So as the LSD started to kick in the band opens up with a nice Touch, then a tough Minglewood, and by the time Ramble on Rose is played the band is firing on all cylinders.
One thing that blew my mind, well aside form walking by the jester playing his mandolin at the Stanley Mouse art booth, was that everyone was hugging one another and wishing a Happy Solstice! I wondered if everyone in attendance actually knew each other? Remember this was my very first Grateful Dead show. The whole non-judgmental, everyone was accepted, unconditional Love Family vibe was something I was not used to at all. As the first notes rang out and everyone stood up and started moving, swaying, dancing, just plain getting down! I looked around and every person in attendance was smiling and having fun, and 100% into the music and what the band was doing! I knew I had found my family and decided I needed to hear Jerry's voice and guitar playing as much as humanly possible from that moment on!
Every song in the first set was brilliant in my opinion. The Deal smokes! The second set rips from start to finish! I think it was my one and only Scarlet>Hell in a Bucket. The backdrop the band used on that 89' spring/ summer tour will forever be one of my favorites. The lights were amazing and the sound at Shoreline was good.
At the start of the show our friend who was the connection to the Light's crew member and who kind of led the trip down there, he dropped with us but then as we were about to leave the lot and go into the amphitheater...he got a feeling he couldn't go in, something in his head had him confused, we tried talking with him, and re-grouping, basically all the way to almost dragging him through the gates , but he refused to enter! We gave him our love, and made sure he had his ticket, and insisted that he chill in the shade, drink some water and then head in to meet us, we said where we would be on the lawn and had to get inside.
As the encore ended and Jerry said goodbye, we sat down and relaxed as the crowd thinned out. Now as we contemplated the evening we discussed how our friend hadn't materialized. Moments later we see this figure bounding down from way up on the top of the lawn, a tie-dye bandanna on his head and a glittery wand in his hand! It was our friend who refused to go in at the start of the show! Out of the 22,000 people in attendance, he found us probably 4 hours later. He was having the time of his life and we celebrated and laughed, he had been taken care of, somehow convinced to get inside, a head covering gifted to him so as not to overheat on the long hot day, and bestowed a magic wand to direct his flight!
There truly is nothing like a Grateful Dead show!

I sang a little while and then flew on.

It's often said the band blew the gigs of historical import, yet here's a show of mini-history (a pay-per-view event, FM-network simulcast, spiritual day for some) where they played well. In fact, this nearly 3½ hour show (4 hours, in person) is one of '89's best . After a relatively poor 1st show of the run, a much better show and then a day off, they came back strong.

First Set. After tuning and some amp problems, they decide to jam on the tuning riff, Freddie King's Hide Away. I don't know how many times this happened before, if ever. The rest is above average except for a near-trainwreck in Touch and a weaker Cassidy. Brent is especially strong and the Minglewood and the Deal are both top 5 for '89.

Second Set. One of the best 2nd sets of '89, perhaps due to having Clarence Clemons on stage. He doesn't really add that much, just some color, but seems to animate the boys. Scarlet might be the best of '89 (the first I saw not going into Fire - seemed a big deal at the time. Ha ha.). Hell in a Bucket is even better. A super-tempo version, it wails. A little sax for Ship of Fools really seems to inspire Jer. Estimated is the weak point of the set, though still not below average (this was when Bobby was shouting the verses instead of singing). They leave room for The Big Man but he doesn't take much. I'm not a real Springsteen fan but the guy blew great sax and he gives more to a really good Eyes of the World (perhaps you can view it as a foreshadowing of 3/29/90 w/Marsalis). Drums peaked in this era and, though they rarely get props, I still remember this as one of the best I saw of the era until Vegas '91. Jerry was playing a Strat for Space in much of '89. The rest is above average with Clemons taking the solo for the encore.

1st Set:  C+
2nd Set: B+
Overall = 3½ stars

Highlights:
Minglewood Blues - Brent's great
Deal - Jer seems pleased with himself - to our benefit
Scarlet - Brent's just having a good night
Hell in a Bucket - RIYL uptempo versions
Drums - a rare A+
Truckin' - A solid version with a little sax from the Big Man

The venue was new at the time and I hadn't been to it before this run. During the show-less day before we (and a hundred fellow Deadheads) rode the coasters at Great America sans prescience that we were at the future site of the stadium for the Fare Thee Well-50 shows. A non-Deadhead friend had moved to [just a few miles away] so it was natural to drag him across the freeway to the Solstice show. He knew little about the band (other than the fact that I was likely to drive for a couple days to see this weird little one-hit-wonder pop group that had the vid on MTV) and had horrible taste in music (IIRC, his faves: Gloria Estefan and Paula Abdul). We couldn't impress the urgency of prompt attendance and ended up midway on the lawn (after other friends stopped holding out seats down low as they had done the previous days). Pie-eyed (oh yeah, we fucking dosed him), he was garrulously animated about his newly discovered wonders of the universe. Just not getting it (here on the ground), during every verse he'd say, "Oh, the Garcia guy is singing again," and he'd pay attention. Then, during each solo he'd go back to loquacious internal discovery. Then, "Oh, look they're singing again," and he'd pipe down and listen, ignoring those "long instrumental songs in-between that they keep playing". A Springsteen fan, he was blown away when Clemons came out and kept asking, "But is it really him? But I mean, like, really?". Only by the end was he starting to grab a handle. By then he was chuffed and seemed to have been positively influenced. Ultimately it didn't take, and he seemed to forget about it over the following months. He met and married a beautiful but narrowly conservative and sanctimonious woman and turned his back on the bus and any vaguely bus-related elements in life, lasted a couple decades, then offed himself. Weirdness without turning pro. So as not to leave sour: good show though!

SOURCES: Everybody had the FM version and the PPV is on Youtube. The former was fine-sounding and the latter was very compressed but this walker-scotton-miller finally offers a version that really reveals the fine playing in this show.

6 year old daughters first show. She called the opener like a pro.

all in all a great homefield show.

nice vibe